Watching the nautch girls

The recent spot-fixing story had everything to keep headlines buzzing – money, sex, sleaze, gambling and even a towel visual. Soon the narrative became about degrading Indian values and the players’ greed. Nostalgia experts reminisced about the time when cricket was a gentleman’s game. Some blamed the IPL. Others said it was just ‘a few rotten eggs’. The suggested, typically naïve solution was for the BCCI to be stricter, and keep players under control.

It is laughable when the BCCI is given the onus of keeping players fair. For, it is one of the biggest talent-exploitative and unfair organizations in the world. BCCI won’t have a solution. It is the problem.

Much has been written about the BCCI’s lack of accountability and dishonesty. However, the problem lies in the BCCI’s fundamental structure, the power abuse of players it allows and how IPL is part of that exploitation.

The spot fixing may have surprised people. However, far more shocking is that we as a cricket-loving nation have allowed our entire cricketing talent to become pawns. Like a king’s nautch girls, our cricket players have to do what the BCCI tells them. Else they risk unemployment, banishment and an end to what is an already risky career. BCCI pays players what it feels like, stops them from joining other leagues, and decides the terms of its own league. One can understand an inherent natural monopoly required to create a national team. But, how can the BCCI have a monopoly over IPL? How can it tell players to play IPL, and nothing but the IPL, when it comes to revenue generating side activities?

It is important to understand how the BCCI is able to run a sweatshop-like enterprise in full public eye. BCCI, a private club, through its membership of the ICC (International Cricket Council), has the mandate to select the national team. This one mandate has allowed BCCI to exploit every professional Indian cricket player ever born. For, the BCCI will blacklist you from being considered for the national team if you don’t dance to their tune. A few years ago, a domestic league called ICL (Indian Champions League) was floated. BCCI banned players from joining the other league. Why? It wasn’t an alternate team to Team India. How on earth did the BCCI get the right to publicly blackmail players into doing what it wants, even when it doesn’t affect the national team? Why couldn’t our players join domestic league teams wherever they wanted? We, the people, didn’t raise questions then. We just sat in the kings’ durbar and watched the nautch girls’ new show.

Soon after, the BCCI copied ICC’s model and launched IPL. It brought private team owners, but BCCI decided the revenue sharing between stakeholders and kept control. The IPL had nothing to do with national cricket. And yet, the BCCI could dictate terms to every IPL team owner and player. We, as a nation, did nothing but watched. For, the show was good.

Here are some facts: the BCCI’s own website (with very limited, specious disclosure) cites revenue of Rs 848cr for 2011-12. Of this only Rs 47cr was paid to players, or around Re 1 for every Rs 20 earned. Is this a fair split? Who decides it is a fair split? If spectators pay for cricket, where would they want the money to go? Of course, add the lack of accountability and control over players, BCCI also has ample opportunity to milk extra unaccounted earnings.

Some may feel our players are well paid. However, fair payment is not what you decide is reasonable. It is based on the revenue they can generate. Frankly, on that metric, the average player is highly underpaid. Considering the short career span, the competition in reaching professional level and the thousands who try but don’t make it – the median player incomes are low compared to what the game can and does generate. The reason – BCCI. And when incomes are unfairly low, the mother organization is exploitative and doesn’t respect talent, is it a surprise when players choose the wrong way to boost incomes?

What needs to be done? Well, a structural fix will work best. BCCI can keep the national team mandate (someone has to). However, IPL should be divested out of BCCI. IPL is a separate revenue generation activity. Let our cricketers have control over it, along with partners they choose. Domestic leagues have no bearing on the national team, and BCCI has no reason to exploit players for the same. We as spectators, too, need to realize the urgency and importance of cricket reform. If you care for cricket, help fix it. Raise your voice, share your concern and reach out to your politician against BCCI’s exploitation of your stars. The players will thank you for it. Release Indian sport from the clutches of these mediocre power exploiters. That is the real game right now. Otherwise we will continue to remain spectators watching the nautch girls.